Photo by Troy Freund Photography
Boulevard Theatre's 'Stella and Lou'
Ramsey Schlissel and Joe Ferrie in Boulevard Theatre's 'Stella and Lou'
One of Milwaukee’s longtime theaters, Boulevard Theatre, offers an intimate theater experience in its “elevated concert reading” of Bruce Graham’s Stella and Lou.
While this romantic comedy is geared towards the more “senior” among us, it still has much to offer younger audiences. Those lucky enough to get a reservation (in this limited theater space) will be amused and charmed by the play’s onstage banter. The 81-minute play opened Saturday and continues through October 6 at the Sugar Maple tavern in Bay View.
As the audience settles into its seats, Boulevard’s artistic director and founder, Mark Bucher, makes his usual pre-show appearance to “warm up” the crowd. During his remarks, expect a number of “shout-outs” to other theater locals. Like all Boulevard shows, you’ll find yourself sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with some well-respected actors and directors. Many of them got their professional start at the Boulevard.
They know that Bucher’s pre-show jibes are almost half the fun of being in the audience, and they wouldn’t miss a second of it.
During his speech, Bucher promotes others theater events in the area. But he isn’t afraid to poke fun at other shows currently on the boards, especially those by theater companies with large donor bases and oodles of cash for production values. (In contrast, Boulevard’s offerings are definitely done on a “shoestring budget,” with minimal help from state arts agencies. Let’s not forget that Wisconsin ranks dead last—50th place—for its per-capita arts funding.)
Boulevard Continues Its Nomadic Quest for a New Home
Since losing its longtime home on Bay View’s Kinnikinnic Avenue years ago, Boulevard has been in a nomadic mode. For several years, it had a nice run on the city’s East Side at Plymouth Church, located near the UWM campus.
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Its current location is in the back room of Sugar Maple tavern, located just off of Kinnikinnic. It’s not far from the “original” Boulevard space. It is a simple, homey, “black box” type of environment that is suited to Bucher’s “elevated concert readings.” Boulevard doesn’t have the cash to mount full-scale shows.
While staged readings don’t normally engage the audience as much as full productions do, Bucher and company do an excellent job of creating much more than a “bare bones” theater experience. As those who witnessed Boulevard’s earlier staged readings of The Best Brothers and Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other, (which still may be revived yet again), a staged reading can be much more than the sum of its parts.
In Stella and Lou, a 60-ish bar owner (Joe Ferrie) manages to keep the doors open while grieving the loss of his wife, who died of cancer several years ago. Lou still welcomes his nightly regulars, although they seem fewer and fewer as time goes on. As the play opens, Lou and one of the other bar regulars, a much younger guy named Donnie (Scott Sorensen) are giving eulogies for one former regular. Donnie counts exactly nine mourners at the service, and none of them are related to the deceased.
Although this sounds like a downbeat opener, Donnie ensures that it is anything but. He begins his eulogy with faint praise for the deceased, before admitting what all the other guys attending the service already know. Ricky (the deceased) was a jerk (Donnie uses a stronger phrase). In his earlier years, Ricky walked out on an infant daughter he never knew and failed to support. In this world, such actions are seen as a disgrace.
While Lou admits that he “now goes to funerals the way I used to go to baseball games,” he quietly funds Ricky’s send-off. Meanwhile, Donnie ponders whether to get married to his live-in girlfriend. He admires the way her frequent “pie-lattes” sessions make her look “hot.”
Although the characterizations created by playwright Bruce Graham aren’t always complimentary, they are intensely authentic. His characters behave and talk the way people actually do, especially people who find themselves sitting in a dark, dingy, working-class bar.
Photo by Mary Ellen O'Donnell
Boulevard Theatre's 'Stella and Lou' cast
Boulevard Theatre's 'Stella and Lou' cast at the Sugar Maple: Pat Sturgis, Ramsey Schlissel, Scott Sorensen, Joe Ferrie, and guest director David Ferrie.
While the Sugar Maple is much nicer than the description of Lou’s bar, it certainly provides a dose of the proper atmosphere. On opening night, as Sugar Maple regulars began filling into the adjacent bar area, the sounds of “bar life” could easily be heard through the wall. For a play that lacks costumes, stage lighting, a music track, etc., this “mood music” is a nice addition. When getting a beer before the show, one can find a few touches that one might have found at Lou’s bar, such as an old Rocky and Bullwinkle pinball machine (yes, it works). The play does not have an intermission.
Onstage, the actors stand behind music stands to deliver their lines. First-time local director David Ferrie (himself a Boulevard veteran performer) does an exemplary job of visually “erasing” the row of stands so that the audience seems merely a few feet away from the actors. The actors barely glimpse at the scripts in front of them.
In this four-hander, all of the actors do an excellent job. As the narrator, Pat Sturgis has a few lines but mostly stays silent as the other actors carry the tale. Most of the early scenes involve only Lou and Donnie, but things start to crackle once Stella (Ramsey Schlissel) makes her entrance.
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Stella Makes Her Entrance
Stella is also one of Lou’s “regulars,” but only on the nights when she done with work at the hospital’s emergency room. But it’s clear that she comes mainly to see Lou. There’s a quiet attraction between them as Stella talks of many things: moving to another state to be with her daughter and grandchild (which alarms Lou), and remembering the final days of Lou’s wife, who Stella tended at the hospital.
Stella admits to being “almost jealous” of Lou’s wife as she saw how Lou cared for her. It’s clear that Stella wants something more than a beer from Lou now, but he’s unsure of whether to move forward or not. He’s not happy with his current life, but he’s afraid of what might happen if he stepped beyond it.
Stella muses that if she does move to Florida, her grandchild would only be interested in a few more years of spending overnights at grandma’s house. In an Besides, the sunshine gives her freckles. “That might look cute on a 10-year-old, but on me, they look like liver spots,” she moans. In a Chicago version of this play, the character of Stella was played by actor Rhea Perlman (known for her longtime role as a waitress in TV’s “Cheers,” and estranged wife of Danny DeVito). One can envision a lot of Perlman – and Schlissel – in Stella’s witty repartee.
For arts patrons who are unemployed or otherwise still on a “Covid” budget, the best news about Stella and Lou is that tickets are pay-as-you-can. Don’t forget to leave something in the donation bucket on your way out. You’re in for an unforgettable night in the theater – even if it’s located in a southside bar.
Stella and Lou continues through October 6 at in the back room of the Sugar Maple tavern, 441 E. Lincoln Avenue, Bay View. For tickets, advance reservations are encouraged: email boulevardtickets@gmail.com.
